Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec.1/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Foreign investment in Iran has surged by 86 percent since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 20, compared to the same period in the previous year, ISNA quoted Iranian deputy economy minister Behrouz Alishiri as saying on Saturday.
Despite international economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the foreign investment amount is even 24 percent more than the previous year's total sum, he added, without elaborating.
In September, Iranian deputy economy minister Behrouz Alishiri said that foreign investment plans worth as much as $10 billion are expected to be transacted by Iran during the current Iranian calendar year, which ends on March 20, 2013.
Foreign investment plans in Iran amounted to $4.3 billion last year, showing a 27 percent growth compared to the year before, Alishiri said.
Iran needs up to $400 billion in direct foreign investment to materialize its objective of 8 percent economic growth, he added.
Over the next five years, the government will need new sources of capital sources through the input of national and international private finance, Alishiri said.
In October 2011, he noted that Iran was one of the top destinations in the world for direct foreign investment and that despite the economic sanctions more than 400 foreign companies were directly investing in Iran.
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran's oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Iranian Central Bank.
U.S. sanctions entered into force on June 28, while EU bans on Iranian oil imports came into force on July 1.